The sun is still intense but it will set soon, just to my right where the mesa is facing. I vaguely look for camp spots but mostly keep moving, until thirst calls out (screams out) yet again.
Call me a cheater.
I arrange a ride with Paul, the owner of The Gatherin Place and plan to skip 28 miles of dusty, exposed road walk.
Wouldn’t you?
He doesn’t want to leave too early so I enjoy my enormously comfortable bed all alone at Toaster House. Yes, sleep is better on the right mattress.
Nights will be warmer, so I reluctantly donate the wool shirt Jay gave me. It truly saved my life in the frigid temps, but it’s very tight and meant for someone smaller. I’m sure the lucky recipient will be overjoyed, I certainly was.
I make my way up the hill next to the highway, the sun so glaring in my eyes, I walk right past the restaurant and find myself at the next one, Pie-O-Neer. But it doesn’t matter since I’m early, so I just turn around and settle in at the outdoor patio.
Paul arrives, then the two cooks and Liz, the waitress. We gab until Paul is ready. What a lovely bunch of people. Paul has all sorts of ideas with new recipes, a website for late arriving hikers to order food and a shuttle service.
Pie Town is really just a wide spot in the highway, but it’s an important wide spot and hikers are hungry, and also thirsty for booze.
Once we get going, Paul hands me a breakfast burrito which I dispatch in minutes and he shares more about himself and his plans.
This road is familiar to him as he lived way out here for some time. It’s just a rough dirt track surrounded by juniper and pinyon, but more desert plants and dry as dry can be. We kick up dust and it really takes us no time to get to the Cebolla Wilderness and the beginning of a CDT alternate.
This has been such a special hike because I have made such interesting friends. Paul makes me promise to stay connected and I wish him a fantastic season, then I’m off, straight into sand.
Ahead is another hiker! “Reset” signed the book at Toaster House so I was a little familiar with him. He stayed five days to get out of the cold and left yesterday. Poor thing hiked the entire road and set camp a few miles back.
I assume we’ll hike together, but somehow my pace is faster and I lose him almost immediately. It makes no sense to me as I am a serious plodder, but I will say this next section has me a bit spooked.
I may have skipped a long section of road, but honestly at least 95% of the section between Pie Town and Grants is road.
Of course, I could walk the actual CDT as opposed to this alternate, but that is a walk on lava rocks – exposed, difficult to follow and hard on the feet. This is shorter and I’m hoping for some beauty along the way.
Instead, I find myself focused on the lack of water. The only guaranteed water along the entire route is at an off-trail solar well in 13 miles. It’s not particularly far, and I’m carrying two liters, but a weird panic takes over, that somehow I need to get there soon and get these miles behind me.
The sandy, tough-to-walk-on road fades into a single track path winding in and out of deep arroyos carved by an enormous amount of water. Nothing exists now and its absence is kind of spooky.
At one point in my charging ahead, I think I see a riverbed filled with muddy water. It’s only an optical illusion and that has me even more spooked.
I pass a ruined house and wonder at the lives that happened here. It’s beautiful in its own way if you have water.
The trail makes a sharp bend and passes beautiful outcroppings. There are said to be ancient pictographs here, but I can’t find them. It would be a long way to a whole series, but with water so scarce, I dare not add miles to my day. Perhaps I’ll return.
I rise up on a mesa and pass a large, caffe au lait colored tank. I don’t need water yet, so keep moving. I must have risen 100-200 feet at the most and yet the wind is more intense – thank goodness as it’s cooling – and the trees are more abundant. There is something about the New Mexico sky, an intense blue and today, absolutely free of clouds.
I’m up here only briefly as I sail down on a roller coaster of a hill and right back to desert. Ahead is the remains of another tank. I find shade and down my first liter. Halfway now to the solar well, but I’m parched.
I’m now back on road and it’s less deep sand, but more small rocks. It’s not kind to my feet and now the going just feels relentless. I see a van coming my way and have visions of sodas being freely handed out, but he turns up another road toward a canyon. Again, something to explore another day.
There is beauty here, in a desolate big sky way, where the mountains are pointy and shapely far off on the horizon. I memorize a bit more of my speech and think how this place will always be imprinted on that talk.
My shoes are filled with sand, but nothing outright hurts. It’s just I’m tired and this feels endless.
Of course, there is an end and I soon see the windmill far ahead. Distances are impossible to judge and it’s many, many rocky steps to my cutoff.
Indeed it is an impressive well. The windmill is busted and it’s pieces dangle precariously over the one sliver of shade I choose to make my base. Water is pulled up by solar power now and dumps into a mighty cistern with overflow in a tank.
I set up shop to filter four liters to carry plus whatever I need for lunch. Since I’ll have no more water tonight (or the rest of the way) I make dinner now, chickpeas with a lemon dill sauce. Delicious out here under the wonky windmill.
It takes a good twenty minutes for the dried chickpeas to rehydrate, so I get a nice long rest. The wind picks up and I hope to god I’m not a statistic from a flying bit of machinery, but all stays in place and I feel full and sated.
But let me tell you, ten pounds of water is not fun. I walk like a two legged turtle, my sticks more for balance than anything else. Prairie Dogs pop up to check me out, than peep loudly before darting for another entrance to their labyrinthine den.
I may be slow, but I’m progressing along and this dry, dusty, dangerous desert be damned! I have four liters of water that will keep me alive and well for at least twenty miles.
I suddenly realize that this LASH (Long Ass Section Hike) has been bookended by massive water carries in hot, flat places. I don’t feel particularly elated, but it does make me smile.
I meet a road, a paved road, and begin the long plod onward to Grants. Other hikers suggest getting off the road for at least five miles on the Narrows Trail. It takes the hiker up on a mesa, and it does sound tempting.
The trailhead is still four miles ahead and you know what? I’m too old for this highway walking nonsense. So I stick out my thumb.
Again, it takes less than ten cars for one to stop. They always need lots of stopping time, or are not really sure they want to stop until they pass me and see my pleading middle age face.
Dwight from Kansas City in a bright red pickup and wearing a “Sturgis, 65th anniversary” T-shirt picks me up, just stopping in the middle of the road to adjust a few things.
I tell him it’s only a few miles but will save me hours then ask if he has a soda or even a beer. He says no, but would sure like to meet for a drink and asks for my number.
We’re at the trailhead in minutes and I am so glad I chose to head up. What a fantastic view! The mesa ends at a vertical rocky face right above the highway. Beyond is a sea of lava rock, trees and shrubs now working their way into nooks and crannies. Beyond are the oddly shaped mountains which I realize must be blown out vents.
It’s a whole different world ip here. Of course impossible to move as steadily as on a road since it’s rocky with cairns pointing the way. The cliffside is worn into hoodoos and exposed minerals. Other than a couple and their dog, I see no one.
I spy a log which appears to have both some shade and a view then head towards it. Once I’m upon it, the magic begins.
The log is in an L-shape, protected somewhat from the worst of the wind and protecting a bed of pine needles just my size. It’s as though my cowgirl bed has already been laid out for me.
At first I sit with one pine tree trunk blocking the sun but not my view. I drink and eat a snack. It’s 6:30, not too early to stop.
As I contemplate making my bed right here I take a look around, and notice a small pool in the rocks filled with water! All day I’ve been worried about not having enough and here in this perfect little spot is my own private source.
I happily drink up, even make bouillon then replenish my resources before making my perfect little cowgirl site as the setting sun turns everything a deep orange, the stars come out and a waxing gibbous moon makes a light totally unnecessary.
And tonight is finally warm again.
